Anna believed her willingly, as Elsa knew she would. And more importantly, she took a liking to Jack. Her bubbly energy matched his youthful vigor, and Elsa watched them converse rapidly, pleased that they were getting along. Anna was thrilled.

Elsa expected Kristoff, Anna's boyfriend, to be much harder to convince- but having been raised by trolls all his life, this wasn't much of a surprise to him. Their snowman friend Olaf was never a question. Being made of snow and ice, he could always see Jack. Beyond Olaf, nobody else could see Jack. The people of Arendelle had accepted their new queen's powers; but it would be a completely different thing to accept, or even believe, in the flying boy who could control the weather. Anna tried a social experiment, more than once; conversing with Jack in plain sight of passers-by. Each and every one asked her who she thought she was talking to.

"I'm sorry, Jack," she said, after the tenth time it happened (the lady had left briskly, dragging her puzzled son along behind her in a hurry.) "It's going to take a hundred years for these people to get used to this idea…"

Jack only nodded numbly. These people, and everyone else.

"Tell me something, Elsa," he asked her afterward. "How did you finally manage to control your powers?"

"Well…of course I never forgot the things you taught me, but it did take some troll magic, a surprise marriage announcement and a winter curse." she replied, "In the end, Anna helped me find it. It was her sacrifice that showed me the answer was very simple."

"Well?" Jack said impatiently. "What is it?"

Elsa smiled. "Love."

Then she glided away to examine some royal documents.

Jack watched her go, marveling, not for the first or the last time, at how much she had changed.

I must stop thinking of her as the vulnerable little girl she used to be…that just isn't her anymore, he reminded himself. She's grown up, beautiful and powerful, and she learned to control her abilities without me…She doesn't need me.

But if that's the case, why can she still see me?

He flitted in and out of her life over the following year, staying longer every time he came, making her laugh and toss snowballs at him with a determined savvy that he loved to watch. And she fell for him. She couldn't help it. All her life she'd never even begun to entertain the thought of it, of falling for someone, and yet here she was. Like crashing through thin ice into the murky blue below and not feeling cold, but warmth, warmth, warmth, spreading across her body like the gentlest of candle flames.

It was the same feeling she felt when she'd broken the winter curse on Arendelle, sending her magic scattering across the sky in bursts of sparkling white. That was how she knew it was love, and not just a silly infatuation attached to reuniting with the boy who'd been her only friend for years; who knew what it felt like to be lonely, isolated, misunderstood. Well, yes; those things were part of it. But although Elsa couldn't quite place it, she knew there was more. So much more.

Anna noticed, of course. How could she not have?

"If you like him," she said one day, "you should let him know."

Elsa almost dropped the royal seal she was holding. "What? Who?"

"Oh, you know who," wheedled her sister. "Jack!"

"I certainly like him," said Elsa, "but not in the way you're implying." She formed a snowball out of thin air and tossed it playfully at Anna. The other princess, used to this behavior by now, dodged it easily.

"You nearly dropped that seal, Elsa, and I know you don't drop anything," she continued. "Now winter will be here in a few weeks, and Jack is coming along with it. You should let him know. Before he leaves again."

"And what would I say?"

Anna shrugged. "Ask him to stay?"

Elsa laughed dryly. "I can't tell Jack what to do."

"But you can tell him how you feel."

Can I?

She didn't have to.

This is my winter song.

December never felt so wrong,

cause you're not where you belong;

inside my arms.

This is my winter song to you.

The storm is coming soon

it rolls in from the sea.

My love a beacon in the night.

My words will be your light

to carry you to me.

Is love alive?

Is love alive?